Fat Pants Friday: Levain Bakery's Walnut-Chocolate Chip Cookie

Compiling Our 10 Best Cookies list required a bit of field research, and while we were more than casually acquainted with Levain Bakery's walnut-chocolate chip cookie, we were happy to get to know it a little better. For the sake of research, of course.

Weighing in at almost a quarter-pound, it's less cookie than the product of a union between some chocolate chips and a double-decker bus. Weighted with walnuts, semisweet chocolate, and butter, it could easily serve as a doorstop or be employed in a bocce ball tournament.

Though it long ago became a thing of legend, the cookie has plenty of detractors who like to complain that it's just this side of raw. We, however, have absolutely no problem with its gooey interior, particularly when it's still warm from the oven and sagging with semi-melted chocolate. It's excessive and over-the-top, yes, but we've never been ones to bemoan an excess of good ingredients, particularly when they're combined to such delectable, woozy effect.

Eating the cookie is less indulgence than event, one that you may consider rearranging the day's dining schedule for -- its consumption is best followed by either a nap or a cigarette, depending on your preferences. As such, it proudly occupies the Sweatpants end of the Fat Pants spectrum, and we wouldn't have it any other way.